The List: 6 Jan 2000 (Issue 377)

distraction for Falzone, despite the attentions of his own caring, but kooky spouse (Blanchett). The two men confront each other after Falzone‘s paranoia peaks and thereafter the ﬁlm spirals sadly downward, and, considering how close it often veers towards buddy movie territory, Pushing Tin is resolved in a rather peculiar and unsatisfying way. Stirling: MacRobert. Ratcatcher (15) (Lynne Ramsay, UK, 1999) William Eadie, Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews. 93 mins. Seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old James Gillespie, a sensitive boy haunted by the drowning of a neighbour’s son, Ratcatcher paints a bleakly realistic picture of Glasgow family life. Ramsay uses meticulous framing, unusual camera angles and atmospheric images to capture the subtle textures of everyday life, as well as complex inner feelings. Edinburgh: Cameo.

Ride With The Devil (15) (Ang Lee, US, 1999) Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jeffrey Wright, Jewel. 138 mins. Ride With The Devil is a dusty epic of Gone With The Wind proportions, set amid the bloody chaos of the same war. Jacob Roedel (Maguire) rejects his father's Unionist beliefs to follow best friend Jack (Ulrich) in ﬁghting the Confederate cause. Amongst their companions is black slave Holt (Wright), whose devotion to his master confuses his loyalty to his own people, whose bondage he is ﬁghting to preserve. An Oscar-worthy and unashamedly traditional Hollywood war movie that beneﬁts from Lee’s deft way with the intimate, the ambiguous and the morally complex. Edinburgh: Filmhouse, Lumiere.

The Runaway Bride (PG) (Gary Marshall, US, 1999) Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, Joan Cusack. 116 mins. Gere plays lke, a hardened New York newspaper columnist who gets sacked from his job for writing an inaccurate piece on Magic Carpenter (Roberts) who hasjilted at the alter three times before and is set to marry again. He goes to her home town to write a revenge

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piece on her, only they meet and as plans for the wedding proceed, ‘things' start to blossom between the two. Nowhere near as toe-curling as it could have been. Stirling: MacRobert.

Ryan's Daughter (PG) (David Lean, UK, 1970) John Mills, Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles. 206 mins. Well staged, acted, written (by Robert Bolt) and directed romantic drama with a huge budget that’s so verrrrrrrrry long. Set in a rural Irish community in 1916, Miles is the schoolmaster's wife who falls for an English army ofﬁcer which causes all kinds of problems in the community. Edinburgh: Lumiere.

Scrooge (U) (Brian Desmond Hurst, UK, 1951) Alistair Sim, George Cole, Michael Hordem. 86 mins. Probably the best screen adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The story concerns the overly-prudent businessman Ebeneezer Scrooge (Sim), whose becomes a saint overnight. But Dickens was never afraid to tackle the big issues: the threat to children‘s lives, whether they are privileged or poverty-stricken is one of the main themes. Still, none of the darkness gets in the way of a cracking tale. Stirling: MacRobert.

The Secret Of Roan lnish (PG) (John Sayles, US/lreland, 1994) Jeni Courtney, Eileen Colgan, John Lynch. 103 mins. Master ﬁlmmaker Sayles delivers a wonderfully wistful Celtic fantasy that should appeal to older and younger viewers alike. Capturing the mood of rural lreland and the legend of the half-human, half-seal selkies, he spins a rich tale of everyday magic which taps into the cultural identity of the setting without a hint of condescension. Glasgow: GET.

A Simple Plan (15) (Sam Raimi, US, 1998) Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Bridget Fonda. 121 mins. No close but very different brothers accidentally stumble upon 34m in a wrecked plane, and decide to hold onto the cash. But of course, their illegal lottery jackpot is just the start of a nightmarish descent into greed, suspicion and murder. Edinburgh: Cameo.

The Sixth Sense (15) (M. Night Shyamalan, US, 1999) Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Olivia Williams, Toni Collette. 107 mins. Nine-year-old Cole Sear (Osment) has a terrible secret. He can see the dead walking the earth; they‘re around him all the time and it‘s scary as hell. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Willis) takes his case and spends all of his time, at the expense of his marriage to Anna (Olivia Williams), attempting to help the boy. Shyamalan's clever script suggests much and explains little, keeping the audience guessing. General release.

Sleepy Hollow (15) (Tim Burton, US, 1999) Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Christopher Walken. 105 mins. During the ﬁnal days of 1799 ambitious young policeman lchabod (‘rane (Depp) is sent to the fog-shrouded village of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of decapitations, but his scientific beliefs are shaken when he comes face to space with the Headless Horseman. Burton gives Washington lrving's Gothic folktale a distinctly British colouring, as he borrows merrily from the Hammer films of the 505 and 605, while Depp brings the right note of comedy to the dark proceedings. See review. General release.

South (U) (Frank Hurley, UK, 1919) 71 mins. Fascinating footage ﬁlmed during Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated expedition. What starts off as a great adventure becomes a ﬁght for survival against the harsh elements when Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, becomes stuck in the ice. Shackleton lead his men onto the ice where they floated helplessly for ﬁve months before undertaking an 800 mile journey in an open boat to safety. Glasgow: GFT.

Star Wars Episode 1:The Phantom Menace (U) (George Lucas, US, 1999) Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman. 132 mins. On the surface, the plot structure isn’t a million light years away from the original Star Wars. in visual terms, The Phantom Menace stands alone in the cinematic universe. At times you'd think there was more animation than live action on screen - and maybe it’s this toning down of the human element that has left the ﬁlm lacking soul. Edinburgh: Cameo, Virgin Megaplex.

The Straight Story (U) (David Lynch, US, 1999) Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton. 111 mins. Midwestern old timer Alvin Straight is hellbent on re- uniting with his estranged, terminally ill brother so he takes to the road aboard his motorised lawnmower. Famsworth's lead performance is honest, heart-felt and credible, while Lynch maintains his fascination with the inherent strangeness of smalltowns and lost highways. But, in this sublime snail's pace odyssey, modern psychosis is replaced by old time decency. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.

Summer Of Sam (18) (Spike Lee, US, 1999) John Leguizamo, Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino. 142 mins. Summer 1977 in New York. Disco is the hottest new sound in the clubs, while the punk rock revolution has crossed the Atlantic. The city is also melting down under a record-breaking heatwave, causing blackouts, looting and riots. Out in the Bronx, however, New Yorkers are concerned about something else: a murder spree by a serial killer dubbed by the media the ‘Son Of Sam'. Lee tackles intolerance once more, and it‘s his best shot at the subject since Do The Right Thing. See preview and review. Glasgow: GFI‘, UCl Clydebank. Edinburgh: ABC Multiplex, Filmhouse.

Sweet Smell 0f Success (15) (Alexander Mackendrick, US, 1957) Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner. 96 mins. Ealing comedy director Mackendrick‘s first American movie is a dark-centred conspiracy thriller with a superb evocation of fear and paranoia, shot on the streets of New York. Lancaster stars as a powerful journalist obsessed with destroying his sister's marriage, while Curtis is the gossip hack whose willingness to oblige leads him into a web of trouble. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.

Tales Of Beatrix Potter (U) (Reginald Mills, UK, 1971) 90 mins. Various stories from the children’s writer are told in musical form and danced by members of the Royal

Ballet. Although Peter Rabbit and all his chums appear on screen, ballet is not perhaps the most engaging way to hold a young audience's attention. Nevertheless, twenty years after its original release, it has become part of the holiday season and here beneﬁts from being seen on the big screen. Glasgow: GFI‘.

Tarzan (U) (Kevin Lima and Chris Buck, US, 1999) Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Nigel Hawthorne. 88 mins. Disney has ﬁnally turned its attention to the second most ﬁlmed character in Western cinema (Dracula is the ﬁrst) and has created some astonishing images. Storytelling-wise, Tarzan remains reasonably faithfully to Edgar Rice Burrough’s original. Shipwrecked on a tropical island, baby Tarzan looses his human parents to a terrifying tiger and is adopted by an ape clan. All grown up, the Ape Man is reunited with man and womankind when a trophy hunting] anthropological expedition arrives and Tarzan meets Jane. General release. Tea With Mussolini (PG) (Franco Zefﬁrclli, ltalnyK, 1999) Cher, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith. 117 mins. Zefﬁrelli’s ﬁlm is partly autobiographical, partly ﬁctitious, and concerns the effect on his own upbringing and education by a group of English ladies living in Florence at the time of 11 Duce’s rise to power. This particular brew by Zefferelli and John Mortimer has a melange of flavours and is deftly poured in the most idyllic of settings, yet it seems oddly lacking in zest. Stirling: MacRobert.

Theorem (18) (Pier Paulo Pasolini, ltaly, 1968) Terence Stamp, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky. 98 mins. Pasolini’s twin obsessions which Christianity and Marxism are brought searingly to life in this intense fable, featuring our Tel as a mysterious Christ ﬁgure, who creates spiritual, sexual and emotional upheavals within a wealthy family when he stays for a short time in their home. Enigmatic and powerful. Glasgow: GFT.

The Theory Of Flight (15) (Paul Greengrass, UK, 1999) Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter. 100 mins. A real cinematic oddity, by turns entertaining and embarrassing, sarcastic and soft-centred, as it charts the efforts of a disabled and terminally-ill woman to experience sexual intercourse. Struggling, rebellious artist Branagh is sentenced to 120 hours of community service and moves to an isolated farmhouse in Wales. There he attempts to build a primitive flying machine whilst undertaking his ﬁrst social work job is to look after a young woman (Carter), who is suffering from motor neurone disease. East Kilbride: Arts Centre.

The Third Man (PG) (Carol Reed, US/UK, 1949) Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles. 100 mins. Set in an unstable post-World War ll Vienna, Holly Martins has been invited to the city by his old chum Lime, who is now in the grand-scale drug-dealing business, only to discover that he is dead. Except, he isn't of course, and a multi-layered cat and mouse scenario is triggered. So, what’s so good about it? Well, you have a stirring zither score by Anton Karas, the ferris wheel and the ‘cuckoo clock' speech yet possibly it’s greatest triumph is to cram so much wonder into so little time. Falkirk: Fl‘H Cinema.

Three Seasons (12) (Tony Bui, UK/ Vietnam, 1999) Nguyen Ngoc Hiep, Tran Manh Cuong, Don Duong. 108 mins. The feature debut of Bui, a Vietnamese-bom and American-raised writer-director, Three Seasons offers up a portrait of a country in a process of transition, where Western values hold sway, but where economic ‘progress' and modernisation have come at a substantial price for many of the inhabitants. Although exquisitely photographed, as a piece of drama Three Season’s is curiously unfulﬁlling. See review. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.

The Tichborne Claimant (PG) (David Yates, UK, 1998) Robert Pugh, John Kani, Sir John Gielgud. 98 mins. The most conﬁdent British ﬁlm debut in years brings the most sensational court case of the Victorian Age brought to the screen. 1866. When the long lost heir to the English Tichbome fortune is sighted in Australia, the family’s African servant, Bogle is packed off